The Story of Medicine at Duke
Duke Medicine: The Early Days
In 1924, industrialist and philanthropist James Buchanan Duke established the Duke Endowment with $40 million and directed that part of his gift be used to transform Trinity College in Durham, N.C. into Duke University. The following year, upon his death, Mr. Duke made an additional bequest to the Endowment and the university, including $4 million to establish the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and Duke University Hospital.
One of James B. Duke’s primary motivations was to improve health care in the Carolinas. At a time when medicine in the region was still a cottage industry, Mr. Duke dared to dream of creating what he hoped would become one of the leading medical institutions in the nation.
By the time the new medical school, hospital, and nursing school opened, this dream was already well on its way to becoming reality. Duke Hospital opened its doors for the first patients on July 21, 1930. Later that year, on Oct. 2, the first class of medical students began their training, followed by the first class of nursing students on Jan. 2, 1931. Less than five years after the School of Medicine opened, the Association of American Medical Colleges ranked it among the top 25 percent of medical schools in the country.
Recognizing its responsibility for providing quality care to the people of the Carolinas, Duke also opened the first major outpatient clinics in the region. The Private Diagnostic Clinic, organized in 1931, not only provided coordinated medical and surgical care to private patients with moderate incomes but also allowed members of the medical faculty to contribute a portion of their earnings toward the continued excellence of medicine at Duke.
Rapid Expansion
Building on this heritage,
Duke Medicine has grown and expanded over the years and now
ranks as one of the world’s outstanding health care centers. It
operates one of the country's largest clinical and biomedical
research enterprises and is dedicated to quickly translating
advances in technology and medical knowledge into improved
patient care. The medical campus now encompasses 90 buildings
on 210 acres and employs approximately 19,500 people, including
over 1,500 faculty physicians and researchers.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Duke University Medical Center began to expand beyond the borders of Duke University campus. Responding to the changing economics of health care, Duke purchased primary care practices in the local community and created stronger affiliations with hospitals and clinics around the region.
In 1998, Duke University officially established the Duke University Health System (DUHS), a non-profit, fully integrated academic health care system dedicated to providing outstanding patient care across a continuum of care. DUHS provides a wide range of specialty, primary and emergency care services at sites in Durham, the Research Triangle, and across North Carolina. The health system now includes Duke University Hospital, Durham Regional Hospital, Duke Raleigh Hospital, primary and specialty care clinics, home care, hospice, wellness centers, and community-based clinical partnerships.
Taking the Lead in Health Education
Duke’s School of Medicine is today widely recognized as one of the top medical schools in the nation. Since the 1960s, it has offered a unique curriculum that gives students patient contact a year earlier than at most schools and includes an entire year devoted to independent research or other scholarly pursuits. Twelve percent of Duke medical students are enrolled in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP), which leads to both an MD and a PhD in one of the basic sciences. One of 40 such programs funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Duke MSTP was one of the first three established by the NIH in 1966, and is widely regarded as one of the best.
The Duke School of Nursing originally offered a baccalaureate degree in nursing. In 1953 the school began offering a bachelor of science in nursing degree, and in 1958 it started one of the first nursing graduate programs. In the 1980s, the school ceased offering the bachelor's degree and concentrated on offering the Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree, post-master's certificates, and joint degree programs. In 2002 the school began an accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, a program is intended for students who already have a bachelor's degree and wish to pursue a career in nursing; the program can be completed in 18 months. The school began its first PhD program in 2006.
In addition to the physician and nursing degrees, Duke offers a variety of other education programs in the health professions, including:
- A physician assistant program -- the first such program in the country (established 1966) and a model for physician assistant programs at more than 100 colleges, universities, and medical centers nationwide,
- A doctorate program in physical therapy that has been ranked one of the best in the nation by U.S.News & World Report,
- A Master of Health Sciences (MHS) pathologist's assistant program,
- A Master of Health Sciences (MHS) program in Clinical Leadership, designed to provide clinicians with the skills necessary to become leaders within today's changing health care environment,
- An MHS program in Clinical Research, including a distance-learning component that allows scientists at the National Institutes of Health to earn a Duke degree in clinical research (the first collaborative degree program to be offered at the NIH),
- Allied health certificate programs in clinical psychology, clinical pharmacy practice, ophthalmic medical technology, and clinical pastoral education.
A Powerhouse in Research
The Duke faculty, by most objective measures, rank among the best in the world, and have made Duke University Medical Center one of the nation’s top sites for biomedical research, with more than $431 million in sponsored research annually. Duke is ranked among the top five American medical schools in National Institutes of Health grant funding.
In 1996 the Medical Center created the Duke Clinical Research Institute, which is today one of the world's most sophisticated clinical trials units and the largest academic research organization in the world. Unique among academic medical centers, the Institute has conducted studies at more than 3,120 sites in 60 countries, has over 5,000 investigators worldwide, and has over 500,000 patients enrolled.
Well-known for research that crosses traditional boundaries, Duke is home to several prominent multidisciplinary think tanks that explore the emerging "new biology" and its ethical and social ramifications--including the Center for the Study of Medical Ethics and Humanities, the Center for Chemical Biology, the Center for the Study of Integrated Biology, and the Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy (IGSP). Launched in 2000, the IGSP represents Duke University's comprehensive response to the broad challenges of the Genomic Revolution. The institute comprises scientists, engineers, and physicians as well as scholars in law, business, economics, public policy, ethics, religion, environmental studies, and other humanities and social sciences.
A Promising Future
In 21st century, Duke Medicine's fundamental goals remain much the same as when it was founded more than 75 years ago. Representing the continuing fulfillment of the dream of James Buchanan Duke, Duke Medicine still seeks to carry out its teaching, research, and patient care programs in a manner that meets the needs of society. In keeping with its heritage, it seeks to provide both excellent and socially relevant medical education, research, and patient care, and is expressly committed to the search for solutions to regional and national health care problems.
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